Archive for October, 2008

Finally, the 2-year long presidential race is drawing to a close. During this final stretch, does the McCain campaign choose to draw in new voters by advocating and promoting his own plans and strategies as President? Or does he and Gov Palin continually mock and attempt to ignite fear over Sen Obama? Hmmm, gee I can’t tell.

Campaigning in Pennsylvania together this week, the McCain/Palin team have kept up their constant hammering over their Muslim/Arab/Terrorist Associating/Socialist opponent. “He’s more interested in controlling wealth than creating it, in redistributing money rather than spreading opportunity,” Mr. McCain said. “Senator Obama is running to be redistributionist in chief. I’m running to be commander in chief.” Continuing on there was the moment when he characterized Mr. Obama’s energy policy as “blah blah blah,” as in: “You know, when we talked about offshore drilling, he said he liked it, blah blah blah, all this, and then he said, ‘I will consider — I will consider offshore.’ We don’t need to consider, we need to drill now!”

It is extremely unfortunate for the Replublican party that their candidate is continuing to run on what has become an obviously failed strategy. Interesting parallel isn’t it? The Bush/Cheney administration has been running for the past 8 years on what is now called (even by Fox news) failed and foolish strategies, in both their economic, and war plans. However, they still laud and praise their own ideals as being successful, despite one of the lowest approval ratings of all time.

In the same way, according to all polls, McCain/Palin are now down by double digits. And yet, just a couple days ago on Meeth the Press, McCain claims that everything is wrong, and he’s going to win by a comfortable margin. But he and Bush are nothing alike right?

Oh well, at least McCain finished his latest speech with one of his trademarks. “By the way, when two mavericks join up, they don’t agree on everything,” Mr. McCain said, “But that’s a lot of fun!”

Well, the word of the week has been the dreaded SOCIALISM!! Welcome back to the 50’s folks. The McCain campaign has been pretty vigorous this week with claims that Sen. Obama’s middle-class tax cuts are a “Spread the Wealth” Socialist effort.

This doesn’t really warrant much attention, as just the latest in a seemingly never-ending parade of ditch-effort claims (my personal favorite was the Terrorist). It really does show some insight though into McCain’s mind. The Trickle-Down plan, which has been in effect for the past 8 or so years, was louded and praised by so many people as the answer, but has now proven itself ineffective, and in fact harmful to the middle and lower classes. However, now when there’s a proposal to cut the taxes for the middle class, it Socialism? The ideas floating around are astounding! I got an email forward today comparing it to going to a restaurant, but then tipping the homeless guy outside instead of the server. Good grief.

I guess it’s to be expected though isn’t it? Who has the most political clout, and the loudest voice in the country? Is it the working class? Or is it the people with the most excess cash, and the multi-million dollar companies? Of course any plan that threatens to take any additional revenue from them is evil and must be destroyed any way possible.

Doesn’t Sen. Obama’s plan make sense though (at least to those of us making less than $250k a year)? If you make more, you can afford to pay a bit more in taxes. If you’re making less than that, you pay a little less, allowing you to put more money into savings, retirement, and back into the market! Yes it’s true that the upper echelons of society might have to go with a lower Jaguar model, but don’t worry, I’m sure that the leather interior smells just as good 🙂

As many know, I like to volunteer for the Young Democrats of Utah. This election cycle, their overall campaign slogan has been focused around “16 Votes.”

In 2006, one of the local Democratic candidates, Laura Black (I believe), lost to her Republican opponent by only 18 votes. That just seems insane! You never hear anything like that in a presidential race, because of the electoral college process. Sometimes I think people tend to forget that in the races that truly matter the most to your individual community, every vote truly does count.

I think that’s why I’m so cynical of our voting process sometimes. I tend to get more worked up and excited by national and international issues, but living in a state by Utah, my vote really doesn’t count for much, being blue. I understand that the electoral college was extremely necessary back in the day, because most people in the country had little to do with the presidential candidates, not having the luxury of radio, tv etc. People just rarely had the opportunity to learn anything about race, or the issues involved. But in today’s world, we all see the news, and most people have at least a basic knowledge of the candidates and their positions. So why can’t we just do away with the college, and count the vote outright. It seems as if that would be the truer form of democracy anyway, where the President is the person who actually received the majority of the vote, not the majority of the delegates. Government by the people right?

So what’s my point with all this? In this election season, everyone is very focused on Obama and McCain, which is great; But don’t forget about your local elections! Those are the people who are going to directly effect your lives the fastest, and although they may not shape the world, your personal world doesn’t extend (normally) beyond your local district. So go vote!!!!

This week, former Secretary of State Colin Powell announced that he was supporting Senator Obama in his candidacy for President. I have some mixed feelings about this one, as many people know how strongly anti-Powell I was a very short time ago. And yet, he spoke very eloquently about why he was breaking with his party on this vote, and I think voiced many of my own concerns and issues with the McCain/Palin ticket.

Referencing the recent push by the McCain campaign to associate Sen. Obama with 1960’s radical Bill Ayers, Mr. Powell said, “Mr. McCain says that he’s a washed up terrorist, but then why do we keep talking about him? And why do we have the robocalls going on around the country trying to suggest that because of this very, very limited relationship that Senator Obama has had with Mr. Ayers, somehow Mr. Obama is tainted. What they’re trying to connect him to is some kind of terrorist feelings. And I think that’s inappropriate. Now, I understand what politics is all about, I know how you can go after one another and that’s good. But I think this goes too far, and I think it has made the McCain campaign look a little narrow. It’s not what the American people are looking for.”

I really couldn’t agree more. As Obama said in the 3rd debate, he once, a decade ago, served on a board with Mr. Ayers, along with several well known Republican figures, including one of Ronald Reagan’s advisers. The fact that McCain continues to try link Obama’s and Ayers’ names together through these so called “robocalls,” the debates, and through Sarah Palin shows all of America just what we don’t want to see any longer, continued negative, fear-driven rhetoric.

Mr. Powell also referenced the continued mentions in the media and from the GOP ticket about Obama being a Muslim. “Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian,” he said. “But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, ‘He’s a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.’ This is not the way we should be doing it in America.”

Why does America, the “Greatest and Most Advanced Country in the World” continue to be scared of having anything but a Christian in the White House? Well that’s for a later post, but for now, congratulations to Colin Powell and making some well thought-out decisions.

Wow, so Joe the Plumber. So interesting to hear how interested the nation is in this one guy. He’s been pretty thoroughly commented on already so I won’t waste much space, but isn’t it hilarious what people’s backgrounds actually show? One man questions one of the presidential candidates’ tax plans, and all of a sudden he’s the focus of the final presidential debate, his name being mentioned 26 times! Then later, we find out that he not only owes back taxes and has a lein on his home because of it. He also is not even a plumber, but works for a plumber, and has no current possibilities of starting his own company. Oh, and he actually would be saving money under Obama’s plan, and would lose money under Mccain. Sigh.. when will people learn that if they’re going to criticize the powerful (or at least most public) people in the world, they need to be prepared to have every aspect of their lives ripped open? It’s a little pathetic of the media I think that they were that interested in this one man, but he brought it on himself a little I think, he didn’t have to do any of the interviews.

Oh yeah, and Joe also said that he thought it was horrible and mean of the media to dig into his personal life, as he was getting on a plane to do some talkshows in New York. wow…….

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Eric Ethington

"Eric, trying to have this conversation (lgbt rights) with you is ultimately like trying to teach a pig to dance, it just annoys the pig. So Eric, sorry to annoy you."
-Paul Mero, The Sutherland Institute.